Known plunk throwers break 6000

May 17th, 2011 by pbr

Ernesto Frieri threw an 8th inning plunk to Xavier Nady yesterday, giving Nady a career total of 55 HBPs, but Nady isn’t the important part here. Frieri had never hit a batter before, and if records can be trusted, he became the 6000th player to hit a batter in a major league game (including pre-1900 players and Federal Leaguers). But he couldn’t have become the 6000th pitcher to plunk a batter if Michael Pineda hadn’t hit Justin Morneau about 30 minutes earlier last night, to become the 5,999th. Vinnie Pestano also threw his first career plunk becoming the 6001st.

Francisco Rodriguez of the Mets plunked John Buck of the Marlins last night, and that means the Mets have now plunked the Marlins exactly 100 times. The Marlins have only hit the Mets 98 times.

Joel Piniero threw plunk number 50 of his career, becoming the 389th pitcher to reach that total. He hit David DeJesus, for his 74th HBP. If DeJesus still played for the Royals, his 74th plunk would have tied him with Hal McRae for 2nd place on the Royals all time list, but of course DeJesus doesn’t play for the Royals anymore.

Carlos Gomez got an HBP for the Brewers, breaking their 15 game plunkless streak. That was the 60th plunk ever thrown by Jon Garland.